Aside from
my prophecy, my article on Guided Buses (July 2008) presents facts from named sources, and indisputable problems, not my views. In contrast, critics express
their views, refer to freight and pray in aid schemes, within which they lump
guided systems, as if they were without problems in that environment. A
document downloaded from the Internet and kindly supplied by the German Embassy
states that the ‘British government has made it a criminal offence for an
untrained driver to drive guide-wheel-equipped buses’. If
‘criminal’ is disputed, it is, unarguably, an offence for an
untrained driver to drive such a vehicle. Dr. Tebb’s reference to
Construction & Use Regulations – with which I became acquainted 50
years ago – is a red herring. The legality of the vehicle is not
disputed, only that of an untrained driver. I advanced no personal views
comparing rail with guided buses. My book on Closures clearly shows that I
carried no torch for branch lines.

If I
dropped a cluster bomb, they have created a smokescreen around the facts:

·Essen closed part of its system, and Adelaide did not extend as planned.

·the
rest of the world is disinterested.

·Mannheim and Birmingham
scrapped their systems – at a cost.

·14
UK
towns abandoned plans for guided systems.

·Ipswich had to reconstruct its system when buses of the
original width were unavailable.

·Edinburgh’s system closed twice in the
first year due to bumpy rides.

·Bradford speed limits on competing roads were reduced below
that of guided buses.

·the
inventor of guided buses criticised the Cambridgeshire scheme.

·the
most congested areas cannot be equipped with guide systems

·being
part of a ‘package’ does not eliminate disadvantages

It is
significant that critics do not dispute:

·there
are few advantages, as no more are identified.

·cost
escalation.

·construction
delays.

·disused
railways have to be widened.

·railway
bridges had to be rebuilt.

·some
passengers may stand.

·some
operators, who promised support, have withdrawn.

Snow is
airily dismissed ‘because railways are affected by snow’. Unlike
guided busways, which rely on men with spades or costly under surface heating,
trains attach snow ploughs; hence it is a problem for guided-bus systems. The
point that I was making about accidents in Bradford
was that fences do not prevent trespass as some so fondly imagine.

Dr.
Tebb’s railway strike jibe is not backed by comparative road transport
statistics – because they aren’t any. Railway strikes have no
bearing on the undeniable prospect of strike-bound guided-busways paralleled by
car-congested roads. Railway managers replaced key staff during disputes to
keep services running, as media reports revealed. No other industry dare do
likewise; they would face a walk-out. I did not ‘witness’ strikes
– implying passivity – but to maintain services, personally
directed pre-emptive measures – which did not concede a penny - the basis
of which non-railway people would not comprehend. If UK industry had made,
without dispute, labour saving economies analogous to those for BR track and
signalling staff from the earliest years of nationalisation, there would still
be a UK industry worthy of the name. I refer him to Britain’s Railways –
the Reality, which demolishes myths about strikes, fares, complaints, etc., and
compares them with other industry, including buses. Comparisons are limited
only by their unwillingness to reveal data analogous to that in BR Accounts and
Hansard. He is mistaken in assuming that my entire experience was on rail
operations. For four years, I had road freight responsibilities. Unlike
competitors, we obeyed the law on working hours and loads. If hands-on
experience is mandatory in writing about transport, then virtually all
criticism on railways would be expunged. His semantics about Mode or Technique
are irrelevant to the disadvantages of guided buses in comparison with
conventional buses, especially if using bus lanes. It is remarkable how
‘abject chaos’ so easily springs to the lips when referring to
railways, but not chaos caused by thousands of vehicles diverted from the M6
onto local roads, the A530 blocked for two months when a bridge was smashed by
a lorry, nor a triple collision on Edinburgh’s guided system. The
‘responsible training of drivers’ has not prevented collisions nor
guide wheels being smashed. Hence, it is beyond dispute that accidents will
happen, and they will cause delays.

Messrs Carr
& Richardson have misread my article. I neither said it is a complete
system, nor ignored off-system operations, which are clearly mentioned. Johnnie
Carr attributes Adelaide’s
problems to ‘supplier failures’. It is not their duty to meet any
minor demand. If a supplier does not see a healthy profit, it is not going to
tool up for a handful of specialised vehicles at 15-20 year intervals for some
remote corner of the world. In trying to date railways from 1758, he ignores
the earlier origins of Kerb-Guided road transport. In ‘Railways’,
(published 1929), J.F. Gairns states: ‘before the first railway,
edge-rails were used on which horse drawn wagons could travel, and also travel
on ordinary roads’! The first passenger railway opened in 1830. Incidentally,
conversionists pre-date Beeching by eight years. If Johnnie had kept to the
point and addressed documented facts, he would not have needed a page and a
half, much less a full issue.

I do not
dispute that ‘rare events’ affect other road transport. Those
events will not merely affect guided systems, but will block them. No evidence
is advanced by Nick Richardson that they can be easily ‘mitigated
against’. When debris falls into guided systems, buses will stop until it
is removed – by whom remains to be seen, but it is unlikely to be a
driver who would not be ‘covered by insurance’, and may contravene
‘H&SE rules’. Conventional buses bypass debris or turn and use
another route – options not available on guided systems. He claims that the
article presented only negatives. Advantages claimed by advocates are listed,
although some apply to alternative systems (e.g. access for mobility impaired).
He claims that the listed disadvantages are not exclusive to one mode –
but they are exclusive to guided systems, since they present no problems on bus
lanes or elsewhere. It cannot be claimed that disadvantages are superficial -
why else is there disinterest from so many UK local authorities and bus
operators, and the rest of the world?

There is no
need for an editorial apology for a factually based, source-identified article.
If submissions had to be considered by a ‘committee’, a lack of
consensus, together with the delay making everything out-of-date, would reduce
Focus to an annual stapled A4 Newsletter. It would certainly slash irrelevant
content from critics’ letters! Methinks the lady lobby doth
protest too much.

(NB –
This letter answered every single point made by the three critical letters
published in Focus in August 2008. The only changes in ‘Focus’ from
my original are to replace ‘Johnnie’ with ‘John’, and
to leave out the word ‘lady’.)